Wells Fargo CEO Apologizes For Service Outage

(CNN) – Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan has apologized for “the inconvenience” to both customers and employees following a service outage that kept account holders from accessing their funds on Thursday.

The “recovery from these issues was not as rapid as we or our customers would have expected,” Sloan said on Friday. “We will review the system issues in detail, and do all we can to ensure that this type of disruption doesn’t happen again.”

Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan has apologized for “the inconvenience” to both customers and employees following a service outage that kept account holders from accessing their funds on Thursday.Full credit: Hyoung Chang/Denver Post/Getty Images

Wells Fargo said that smoke caused by routine maintenance activities at one of the bank’s data facilities triggered an automatic power shutdown on Thursday. Customers complained they were not receiving paychecks or direct deposits and had problems with their credit cards.

The processing issues were resolved by Friday morning, and customers could resume using their debit and credit accounts — though, some customers on Friday afternoon might still see outdated balance information when checking their accounts online or at ATMs, the bank said.

All 5,500 Wells Fargo branches will stay open an extra hour on Friday and Saturday to help serve customer service requests, the bank said. It will also refund any fees, such as overdraft charges, linked to the outage.

The service outage was the latest issue for the problem-ridden bank. Over the past couple of years, the company admitted to creating fake accounts, hitting customers with unfair mortgage fees and charging people for car insurance they didn’t need. The bank has been sued, slapped with government fines and had its growth restricted by the Federal Reserve.